It’s hard to believe that Lock & Load is now a month behind us! Once again I was amazed at the energy, dedication, and fun-loving spirit of our players. While circumstances didn’t allow me to arrange one-on-one writing consultations this year, I did have the chance to talk with a lot of con attendees over the course of the event. Here’s a quick review of some of the questions that came up.

It’s hard to believe it was so many months ago when I painted the Storm Troll. I’ve been dying to talk about him! I love trolls. My own army is a troll army, and I plan on having this guy in my ranks. Trolls are great because they’ve got character and even a bit of snarky sass, and the Storm Troll doesn’t disappoint on either count. He’s a storm cloud blue-grey color with bright-blue lightning marks all over his body, and he is electrified with lightning!

Where do I begin?! Last year at Lock & Load I had only been with the company for a couple of weeks, so I was a helper in the classrooms and not out and about with the rest of the studio. This year, however, I was with the studio at my own table, painting up my Trollblood Battlegroup Box and a Stormwall.

Lock & Load GameFest 2012 has come and gone, and even though I didn't think it was possible, I had an even better time than last year! If you saw me there, I was probably a blur of activity. As the Organized Play and Volunteer Coordinator it was my job to run the Press Gang and all the tournaments at the show. I was a fairly busy guy.

Lock & Load was a blast, and the highlight of the con for me was getting to show off LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE]. The demos we ran Saturday and Sunday gave people a chance to experience the game, but Matt Wilson and I gave everyone a first taste during the seminar we ran Friday afternoon. For those of you who didn’t attend Lock & Load, here’s a peek at what we talked about.

Lock and Load 2012 is officially behind us, but man what a Lock and Load it was! As I’m sure many of my fellow staffers will attest in coming blogs (or already have depending on when Lyle decides to post this entry from yours truly) this year’s Lock and Load was an absolutely amazing event. There was just so much to do and see from WARMACHINE and HORDES gaming, to fantastic seminars by our talented staff, to some really fun surprises including the pre-release of Heap (games of which took place all over the con, from the floor of the line to the store to any table that wasn’t being occupied by WARMACHINE and HORDES miniatures) and the surprise that I was most looking forward to announcing, an exclusive first hands on look at a prototype version of the first game in our newest setting LEVEL 7, LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE].

By the time the first day of Lock & Load rolled around, Privateer Press staff had put in tons of exhausting work to make it a kick-ass event. However, that fatigue was quickly replaced by excitement on Friday morning when the doors opened and attendees began to arrive.

It takes a lot to bring this bear out of his cave, but if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s someone disparaging the integrity of Privateer Press. So I feel like I need to nip this in the bud quickly before it spirals out of control. Normally, I wouldn’t give something like this a second thought, but people are piling out of the woodwork to tell me about this, so it’s obviously getting some attention. It started over the weekend when a Facebook friend brought to my attention that some tinfoil-capped conspiracy crackpot who probably lives in a plywood shack in the middle of nowhere has fingered Privateer as being in cahoots with the U.S. government or some unknown division of the government. Apparently, we’re part of an effort to spread disinformation about alleged government involvement with—drum roll for the crazy punch line, as if this all wasn’t crazy enough—aliens. Seriously, it’s hard to write all this with a straight face. Aliens. As in little green men, flying saucers, Mars Needs Women kind of aliens. Thanks to a distributor who leaked our product solicitation announcement too early a few weeks ago, this guy caught wind of our upcoming LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE] board game. Now, in his weird, upside-down freak-show of a world, he has convinced himself (and is trying to convince others) that the game is deliberately trivializing actual events in an effort to hide the truth in plain sight about supposedly heinous crimes committed against innocent civilians. If you want to indulge this kook, you can see his paranoid rants on his beautifully designed website (http://theydonotcomeinpeace.com/).

In only a couple of months, WARMACHINE: Colossals will be unleashed upon the world! To celebrate the release of this awesome new addition to the WARMACHINE arsenal, we’ve created a special piece of organized play for everyone to enjoy.